Post #8407 by aquarj on Mon, Sep 16, 2002 1:09 PM

My newest ebay item is a dirty plain white t-shirt I use for work and playing basketball. Many hours of toil have gone into making it as smelly and brown as it is, so the bidding starts at $30. Anyone interested?

Just kidding of course, and I'm definitely not equating any Tikifish item with a dirty rag. The point is that the hours of effort are almost totally irrelevant to value, at least to me anyway. A 15 minute Mark Ryden sketch could and maybe should be worth a lot, while a 15 hour masterpiece from me is probably still worthless. Even a dirty rag is probably worth a lot if it came from Elvis' sweaty back. Didn't Johnny Depp's cigarette butt go for $150 on ebay? Value is totally subjective.

And if someone has the opinion that some item on ebay is worthless, or a badly-executed ripoff, or even that the seller has zero talent, that doesn't mean it's hateful to say so. There are plenty of "artists" whose work I can't stand, but that doesn't mean it's only fair for me to say so if they're around to defend themselves. Why should they care what I think anyway? Of course, sometimes it is most courteous to follow Thumper's rule - if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

-Randy